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DJ Quik f/ Suga Free "Nobody" (2011)

Producer: DJ QuikAlbum: The Book Of DavidLabel: Mad Science/Fontana Distribution

DJ Quik: “Prince, obviously. Thinned out drums a little bit. Crazy heavy on the guitar melody on the chords. Prince's whole thing. ?uestlove gave me a lot of his music. Somehow ?uest got a hold of a bunch of Prince outtakes and rare stuff and uploaded it to my computer, jam sessions.

"That's one of my favorite motherfuckers man. Prince is a bad motherfucker. Bad to the bone. And I'm just emulating him on the hook—-[Sings] 'I don't neeeed nobody.' You know, seven in the morning, funky teeth, no brush. Just an elitist attitude on the hook. Suga Free came over and we just had fun, we made it easy—the music's easy, the arrangement.

“People ask me, 'Why did you go so far left at the end of it?' Because I could! Because I can do that. It's my music. We change it all up and did it live on the fly. I think that's what makes you a virtuoso. Uninhibited. Anyone can loop a beat—but who can write two beats in one, where it just changes and goes into something else in the end.

"It's for people who like records like 'Soft and Wet,' and 'Dance Music Sex Romance.' Those kinds of records. And Roger [Troutman]. It's a little dreamy, a little ethereal. [Plays on keyboard] The sus chord shit, pretty much what it was. And the lyrics, back to my bright, high-pitched, bouncy conversational voice. I love it. The video was fun.

"It almost seemed too easy. 'Yeah, I'm paying for it, fuck it. We're going to ball out at somebody's house, then we're going to jump in the Cadillac at the end, peace you niggas out, and go back to doing what we normally do. We're just showing our face for a minute.'”